


we grow strong or we grow weak

by GuardianKarenTerrier



Series: adrien augreste 2020 [10]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Comfort Food, Cuddling, Fluff and Angst, Food Sharing, Friendship, Gen, Podfic Welcome, Touch-Starved Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, adrienaugreste, hullo i took this prompt and basically ran in the opposite direction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25009558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuardianKarenTerrier/pseuds/GuardianKarenTerrier
Summary: Whenhadthey stopped thinking of themselves as civilians?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: adrien augreste 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860751
Comments: 30
Kudos: 525





	we grow strong or we grow weak

**Author's Note:**

> i swore to myself i was not going to do this this year i was not i dont have the time 
> 
> hullo, here i am anyway 
> 
> fic for adrienaugreste day one prompt: civilians
> 
> and an additional note now that im awake again: SO I FORGOT THAT ITS _JULY,_ have. have an early fic

He doesn't think about it too hard the first time he hears it. 

He's not even sure he thinks about it too hard the second or third or tenth time. 

He doesn't think about it, because he does it too. 

At some point, Adrien slowly realises that he and Ladybug have started referring to most of the rest of Paris as civilians. (Most- they have their other team members, or they _did,_ and then there are people like Jagged Stone and Anarka Couffaine who are entirely too willing and eager to throw themselves into battle with or without powers). 

He's planning to bring it up, but Ladybug actually beats him to it. 

Adrien should have suspected something when she specified a new place to meet for patrol, but he'd just been happy to get an extra patrol this week. 

He usually beats Ladybug to their patrol spots. 

This time she's waiting for him. 

This time, though she greets him by rising from her tired lean against the wall and ruffling his hair as he ducks closer, he glances past her to see that their tiny secluded space already has a thick blanket laid out over the rough tiles of the roof and there are bakery boxes and two to-go cups of coffee lined carefully up along the edge. 

There's no way that Adrien's first, hopeful thought is right, but he swallows hard anyway and can't quite look his partner in the eyes as he says, more strained than he meant to, "My Lady?" 

Embarrassingly, a purr still colours his voice from Ladybug's petting. His tail wraps around his ankle with nerves. 

Ladybug shifts, drawing him back with her, and he can't look at her long enough to be certain but he doesn't think she's meeting his eyes either. 

She's chosen this meeting place, but Adrien already knows it well. There's some quirk of the architecture in this part of the city that leads to overlapping overhangs and odd little spaces between roofs, and this is one of the spots where several buildings don't quite fit together. It leaves a tiny sectioned-off square half covered by the next roof over, barely large enough for two people and with openings an adult would probably be too big to squeeze through. 

Adrien's slept here a couple of times. 

He didn't know that Ladybug even knew it was here. 

Ladybug clears her throat even as he follows, her hand lightly circling his wrist as she tugs him after her. "Chat, we need to talk." 

Adrien tries as hard as he can not to freeze too obviously at those words, but the worried look in Ladybug's eyes as she drops his wrist and turns sharply back to him means he didn't succeed. 

"It's not bad," Ladybug says hastily, before blinking and then wincing and then reaching out to wrap her hand around his wrist again. Her grip never tightens, never applies any pressure, and it's a lot more grounding than it has any right to be. "It's alright, kitty, I didn't- I didn't think about how that would sound, sorry. That's not what I meant." 

He breathes a little easier, but he still can't stop darting uncertain glances at her even as she tugs him down onto the blanket. She doesn't release her loose grasp around his wrist, though, even as she stretches to grab him one of the coffees. She doesn't let go even as she presses the warm drink into his free hand. 

Incrementally, Adrien relaxes again. 

Ladybug waits for him to take a seat across from her before she lets go at all. Usually Adrien prefers it when they sit side by side but he can already sense that Ladybug wants to be face to face for whatever it is she wants to talk about it, so he forces himself to lean back against the wall instead of forwards towards his partner. 

Ladybug eyes him knowingly, stretches lithely before pressing her back to the opposite wall, and very deliberately tangles her legs with his. 

Adrien drops his own gaze to his coffee, inhaling deeply as he brings it up to his mouth. He can't help the way his tail lashes in delight as he scents the whipped cream and caramel, though, and he winces as the buckle hits Ladybug's leg with a dull thud. They both know from experience that she won't have felt it, but he still feels himself redden. 

The drink also smells more strongly of espresso than either of them actually prefers, which probably means she was already transformed when she got it. People have developed a tendency to dump extra espresso in their drinks when they're transformed. They can't really complain, because it's not like they couldn't both use the energy boost, but it's a little more bitter than Ladybug likes and a _lot_ more bitter than Adrien does. 

Ladybug slides one of the bakery boxes over between them both, flipping it open to reveal a pile of fruit tarts. She snags a raspberry one off the top and tosses it to him, snickering as he fumbles the catch and ends up with powdered sugar down his front and with coffee slopped over the sides of his cup. 

It does the trick, though. He's nowhere near as tense. 

Trying to juggle both the pastry and the coffee, he's not paying that much attention when he comments, absently, "You usually get these things as a civilian." 

He looks up quick at Ladybug's indrawn breath. 

Too quick- he loses his juggling attempt, though he's not about to be deterred from eating one of Marinette's parents raspberry almond tarts just because it landed on a blanket. (He's never questioned Ladybug's favoured bakery. It's everyone's favoured bakery). 

"That's-" Ladybug takes a deeper breath. "That's actually what I wanted to talk about, Chat." 

"What?" He'd looked down to try and rescue his dinner, but he looks back up again at that, and he's going to have a very uncomfortable ache in his neck tomorrow if this keeps up. 

Ladybug rubs one hand across the bridge of her nose, smudging it with powdered sugar and highlighting the way the dark circles under her eyes are prominent enough to creep up under the edges of her mask. His probably are too, honestly, but his mask is a little more concealing than hers is. 

He tries not to think about that too hard. 

"That we're not civilians anymore," Ladybug says at last, slumping back against the wall and pushing her legs further into his. He lets her, even though it presses him further against his wall, too. "When did we stop being civilians, Chat?" 

"Probably when we met Plagg and Tikki," Adrien answers honestly, even though his mind is racing. He knows they haven't been civilians in at least that long, and this has been bothering him too, but he's not sure exactly _when_ they stopped thinking that they were. 

Ladybug starts to draw up her knees and stops before kicking her legs back out. 

Adrien only realises he'd tensed up at the loss of contact when he has it back. 

"I didn't think about being transformed or not transformed this time," Ladybug admits, studying her own untouched drink. "And then I realised I've completely stopped thinking of us as civilians at all. Transformed or not." She makes a face, wrinkling her mask over her nose, and sets the coffee carefully aside. "And I don't want that." 

He doesn't either. He doesn't have to ask her what she means, because he knows what she means. 

They're still citizens of Paris. Neither of them wants to put _that_ kind of distance between their hero selves and their- 

Civilian selves. 

He doesn't know exactly how long he's been thinking it, either. 

Adrien takes a long drink of coffee to hide how much the idea bothers him, ignoring the way he gets whipped cream on his mask even if Plagg's gonna tease him about it later. When he lowers the cup again, Ladybug looks much more put-together. 

"I have an idea," Adrien finds himself saying. "But I don't know if you'll like it." 

She likes it. 

They're not dates, even if they feel like it sometimes. Ladybug was very quick to stress that they're not dates, although she was gentle about it in a way that Adrien appreciates. 

They just start making a point of being more of a _part_ of the city even when they're transformed. They don't transform solely for akuma or patrol anymore (not that Adrien ever had, but this is still different). They go to movies and museums and they go eat at street vendors and they go watch plays in the park and they spend a week deliberately working their way down through every café on a street they chose at random. 

(The café owners go a little wildly competitive when they work that out. No one ever surpasses the Dupain-Chengs as far as Adrien's concerned, but they sure _try,_ and he's not about to object to benefiting from that competition). 

They're not dates, though, even if they really feel like it, even if they both agree it's not worth arguing with journalists over by three days in. 

At least, they're not dates at first. 

It's not that long until they _are._

**Author's Note:**

> is this what was intended by this prompt? oh obviously not. is it the first place my mind went? absolutely. 
> 
> the title is from the quote “Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and perceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and last some crisis shows what we have become,” which ive always seen attributed to brooke foss westcott but admittedly know _nothing else_ about. 
> 
> i dont actually have the time to write these! and i have other things to finish writing first! and yet here i am! 
> 
> so theyre, theyre not gonna be well edited, sorry


End file.
